Depression, Glory, and Perseverance
by snyper
Summary: A human somehow finds himself in the valley of peace, and Tigress is forced to battle depression and confront her own suppressed past.
1. Introduction

My first fanfic. Comments are appreciated! My goal is to develop Tigress as a character for the first few chapters, then focus more on the story at hand. Disclaimer: I do not own Kung Fu Panda.

Introduction:

A sudden blue flash briefly illuminated the dining room of the Jade Palace. The Furious Five and their newest ally, Po, AKA The Dragon Warrior, froze. Everyone had been a little high strung since Tai Lung had been defeated three months earlier, but they could live with it. Obsessive Kung Fu training just does that to you sometimes. The rain continued to pound the wooden building in which they were taking shelter. Or, at least, the Five were taking shelter. Po was having his "Just-After-Dinner-But-Before-Midnight-Snack".

"Would you stop chewing so loudly!" Master Tigress suddenly barked, getting a snicker from Mantis and Crane.

"Mwy cahn hewp ih if hime mwungwy," began Po, with his mouth full, getting more mirth from his companions.

Tigress rolled her eyes and tried to go back to sleep on the thin blanket that was previously employed as a tablecloth. She gave a slight smile. Sure, they were stuck in the rain, they hadn't been able to train all day, and she was stuck with a fat, annoying, stupid excuse for a panda as her new training buddy, but for once today something had gone right. It was kind of funny when she thought about it, being so smug about something so insignifigant as being the only one with a blanket to sleep on, but it didn't matter. If she couldn't train, well then, she was going to sleep. The thought somehow made the day seem a lot better. Suddenly, Master Shifu burst in, dripping wet.

"Hurry up everybody," he yelled. "I think I heard somebody calling for help outside!"

All six of the warriors immediately snapped to attention.

"Yes, Master Shifu," they said in unison, except for Po, who's mouth was still full.

As they hurried outside, Tigress cursed herself for ignoring Murphy's Law: anything that can go wrong will go wrong at the worst possible time. The sudden blast of wind and rain was the last straw. She made up her mind that irony sucked. She stepped off the porch and stubbed her toe on a wet rock, further cementing the idea in her mind.

"Two arm-lengths apart!" yelled Shifu over the roar of the storm. "Sweep down that side of the mountain!"

The sheer mass of cold, wet, dripping leaves made Tigress shiver, but she plunged down the hill anyway. Her fur was quickly becoming soaked, and she had never liked water. Especially cold water. She looked to the right and left, not seeing anything but mud, trees, and puddles.

"Hey guys! Over here! Quick!" yelled Crane from down the line.

Tigress was bounding towards him in an instant, dodging trees and branches. She skidded on the slippery mud and quickly came to a stop. The rest of the party arrived shortly after and stood in awe around Crane's find. Lying unconsious in the mud in front of them was a living, breathing human.


	2. The last straw

I've been working on this off and on for the last few days. Here it is! **Comments please!**

Tigress casually glanced out of the window of her small, cramped bedroom, noting that the rain was starting to let up. That was good. She was still in a bad mood from the wet, muddy search, but changing into a freshly pressed (not to mention dry) suit of clothes had helped slightly. It was already dark outside, and she guessed that the sun had set about two hours ago. Nothing much to do now except sleep. Finally. She gave a contented sigh and was about to lie down on her hard cot when a knock on her thin door startled her.

"Hey, Tigress? You there?" asked Po from the other side of the door.

She was tempted to not answer in hopes that he would think she was asleep, but she decided against it. She got up.

"What do you want, panda?"

"I just thought I'd let you know that Master Shifu told me that Mantis thinks that–"

"Cut to the chase, Po."

"Well, the patient is probably going to be fine. I mean, unless he takes a turn for the worse. I mean, 'cuz, you know, well, he kinda may have had a bad concussion. Why aren't you helping keep an eye on him with the others?"

Tigress sighed. As good as she was at creating injuries, she was no good whatsoever at healing them. Not like she would let Po know that.

"I just don't want to, okay?"

"Suit yourself," Po reluctantly conceded.

He turned to leave, then spun around quickly.

"Oh, oh! I almost forgot! You wanna know the weirdest pard? Do ya? It's really weird! Ok, so–"

"Not now, Po!" Tigress growled.

Po paid no attention.

"–so we asked him where he was from and he said he didn't know, which Shifu said could just be from hitting his head, but then we asked him why he was here in the valley of peace, right, and he said, get this, that he'd never heard of the valley of peace before, and, and, and he had no idea how he got here and..."

"OUT! NOW!" yelled the infuriated Tigress.

Po stepped back for a second before quickly leaving. He slammed the sliding door so hard that it bounced halfway back open. Tigress sighed. She didn't mean to be so cruel and heartless all the time, but, well, she didn't see any other way to get through to everybody else that life is too short for socializing and fun. Slightly ashamed of herself, she lay down on the bed to snatch a few hours of sleep before waking up extra early to make up the training she had missed today.

/

"Tigress? Hellooooo? Tigress! C'mon, get up!" prodded Po.

As if on cue the annoyed feline sat up faster than you can say "overslept". Although she never showed it, Tigress had never been a morning person, and suffering the humiliation of having Po wake her up was almost too much. Attempting to regain her composure (although she was growling on the inside), she got up and began to straighten up her bed.

As usual, Po chattered on oblivious to her annoyance.

"So, Master Shifu says it's a big day today. The human thing is getting better, plus we have to make up for all the training we missed yesterday. I was thinking that, ya know, since I'm your training buddy we could hit the gym while everybody's still finishing breakfast (since I kinda had an early snack), so that way we would be able to take a longer lunch break so then..."

"PO!" Tigress' voice seemed to shake the thin paper walls. "I am NOT training with you, and I am going to ENJOY my breakfast, and I'm NOT going to be a part of any of your stupid plans!"

She had been known to raise her voice before, but never to lash out like this. Po was stunned.

"Got it?"

The timid panda gulped hard and nodded weakly.

"I just thought that you might enjoy..."

"NO! Ever since you've come here you've just been Mr. High-and-Mighty Dragon Warrior and you've upstaged all of us true masters even though you have no skill. You hear me? NO SKILL WHATSOEVER! And as if that weren't enough, all you do is stuff your fat face and ramble on about how 'awesome' it is to be the Dragon Warrior. I don't want ANYTHING more to do with you!"

"Tigress!"

Tigress was shocked to notice that Master Shifu was standing in her doorway.

"Is that any way to treat the Dragon Warrior? You know as well as I do that he defeated Tai Lung when you could not!"

"Y–yes, Master Shifu." Tigress said humbly.

"Since this kind of disrespect to my other students seems to be a recurring problem, I have no other choice but to punish you. You are to do everybody's laundry for the next six weeks."

Tigress winced. "Please, Master–"

"No. I have made up my mind. You are to begin at once. I had Crane gather all the cloths from yesterday, so you don't have to go to the trouble."

The saddened Tigress walked silently out towards the washroom with a heavy heart.


	3. Embarrassment

Sorry for the long delay in updating. Happy 4th of July! Also, I know 418 of you have read my story, so why only 2 reviews?

Tigress shuddered as she scrubbed Crane's towel on the washboard. She checked the pile of cloths that lay on the bamboo floor off to her side, waiting for their turn to be washed. She was almost halfway through, but it seemed like the pile got bigger the more she took off of it. Casually glancing in the direction of the living quarters, she noticed that the rest of the masters were enjoying their breakfast without her. Laughter echoed throughout the Jade palace as someone told a new joke. Probably Crane. Tigress had never thought about it before, but he was kind of the grounding member of the group. Cynical, but funny enough that nobody noticed. Kind of like a new and improved version of, well... herself. Tigress sighed. She couldn't even think anything good about one of her friends (or at least the closest thing she had to one) without seeing competition. And that thought made her even more depressed than she already was. She turned back to the pile of cloths and sighed heavily before continuing.

/

The doors to the Training Building opened slowly as Tigress inconspicuously slunk in, over an hour late.

"Tigress! Glad to see that you're finally done!" Shifu's loud voice exclaimed, eliminating any possibility of avoiding notice from her fellow masters.

"Yes Master Shifu. All the laundry is placed on the bed of it's owner."

"Good! You missed breakfast. Are you hungry?"

"No, Master," said Tigress, but her stomach growled loudly, giving her away.

"You can't fool me that easy," said Shifu with a slight smile. "Po! Take Master Tigress to the kitchen and get her something to eat!"

Although she would never have admitted it, Tigress was famished. She followed Po to the kitchen.

"Since you missed breakfast I decided to let you try some of my special secret recipe breakfast bread," Po excitedly said. "It uses my dad's noodle recipe but with sugar instead of salt. Here, try one!"

Tigress took the sticky, sugar-coated pastry and tried it.

"It's good," she stated without much enthusiasm. "What do you call it?"

"Well, I was thinking calling them Doughnuts, 'cause of the special dough, and, uh, the nuts."

"Not a very imaginative name. They'll never catch on."

Tigress finished her doughnut and wiped powdered sugar off of her mouth.

"Well, I'd better start training."

Po stared blankly.

"Aren't you going to have another doughnut? I made a whole batch just for you!"

Tigress shrugged.

"I'm not THAT hungry. Besides, I can't just go eating junk food all day."

"Aw, c'mon. I made them because, well, because I've been kind of annoying lately. And I didn't want you to think of me as just another annoying panda who keeps waking you up to tell you things you don't want to hear and keeps elaborating when you've already got the point and..."

"You can say that again," Tigress said sarcastically.

"Anyway, I just wanted to say sorry."

Tigress looked at Po for a minute.

"Well, if you're going to make a big deal out of it, then I guess I could have a few more..."

Po smiled.

"I didn't know how hungry you would be, so I made a whole dozen!"

/

Five minutes later all of the sticky goodness was consumed. Tigress, unused to sweet foods, had found herself hooked on the doughnuts and actually managed to eat more than Po. She sat slumped in her chair, her slim, attractive figure spoiled by a slightly bulging belly.

"Ugh. I don't feel so good."

"Are you kidding?" gasped Po in surprise. "You only had eight!"

"Well, I feel like I could throw up."

Tigress got up slowly and weakly wiped powdered sugar off of her mouth.

"I'm going to go train."

The overstuffed tigress plodded off slowly in the direction of the training facility. As she arrived, Master Shifu and the Human were inconveniently walking right past the door.

"Tigress! You're just in time! Let me introduce you to David."

"It is an honor," Tigress said as she bowed.

"I was just showing David here around the Jade palace," Shifu explained. "We suspect that he's from the Far West, but he has no idea how he got here, or where his land lies in relation to ours."

The human spoke up for the first time.

"I didn't know you had another student! I don't remember having seen her when I was in bed. Maybe I was unconscious or something."

Tigress glanced sheepishly at Shifu.

"Ah, yes. Tigress is my best student. She's actually been here longer than the others. I can not speak of her highly enough."

"Thank you master," Tigress humbly said.

"Here, show David what you can do," ordered Shifu. "Go through the training course as fast as you can."

Tigress clenched her teeth and sprang onto the large apparatus that took up the largest portion of the training building. As usual, the spiky clubs started to swing towards her. She blocked them, but every motion seemed to take twice as long as usual. Her side and stomach started aching. She then jumped onto the jade bowl in the middle of the room. She balanced for a second, then clutched her stomach in pain as she got a sudden cramp. Falling into the middle of the bowl, she banged her chin on the edge and cried out in pain. The rest of the Furious Five were instantly beside her.

"Tigress, are you okay?" Shifu asked worriedly.

"I'm fine," Tigress replied through clenched teeth.

Her chin had started to bleed, and blood was slowly dripping down the snow white fur on her neck. Monkey offered to help her up, but she pushed his hand away.

"Don't touch me!" she screamed angrily.

She slowly hobbled towards the door of the training room, groaning in pain from each step. Behind her she could hear Shifu apologizing for the botched demonstration, and wondering out loud what could have gone wrong. Tigress winced and made her way back to her room. She could hear the shouts of her fellow masters doing everything perfectly in the distance. She groaned. It was all her fault, and she knew it. She had stuffed herself with Po's doughnuts, and now she was regretting it. A loud battle roar from monkey followed by applause suddenly broke the relative silence, and Tigress knew that Master Shifu was giving another demonstration to make up for her failure. A tear rolled down her cheek for the first time in years as she curled up on her bed, feeling worthless.


End file.
